With Love, Hermione
by Fidelius Charm
Summary: “Is it murder if the victim is already dying?” I ask to no one in general. I point, aim, and a weigh the choices. ONESHOT.


With Love, Hermione

_By Fidelius Charm_

Summary: "Is it murder if the victim is already dying?" I ask to no one in general. I point, aim, and a weigh the choices.

Note: This little ficlet was inspired by Jack's Mannequin song 'Dark Blue'. It's amazing, you should listen too it sometime. Yeah. Constructive criticism is welcomed as always.

* * *

_A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends._

**--Baltasar Gracian**

* * *

"Ron, you need to go." I hear her tell Weasely, "I'm not going to make it."

"You're gonna make it. I'm going to get you help, you'll be as good as new."

"I'm dying." Is her simple reply.

"But—but your not! You're not!" His simple logic makes me want to insult him, but I can't, as I do not want to blow my cover. He clings to her desperately.

"Don't be an idiot," I softly chuckle at her insult, "The Devourer's Curse is not something you can fight, or survive for that matter."

"But you're Hermione Granger, you can do everything and anything!" He says hopefully.

"Except cheat Death." Smart girl. Finally she discovers her limits.

"Hermione…"

"Please, don't make saying goodbye harder then it already is." She pleads with her redheaded friend.

"Hermione," He replies back, his voice strained and upset, "I'm not going to leave you alone to die," There was a short silence, then he corrects his wording, "I'm not going to let you die alone."

There is another silence, this one being more desperate and devastating, all the while she tries not the scream out in agony.

"Does it hurt?"

She lies, "No," She sucks in a deep breath, "I'll be sleeping with the angels soon," Another lie, "You need to go."

"I can't—" He is interrupted.

"Harry needs you, Ron, I order you to go!" She commands him, as if she was the Minister of Magic, "Go!"

"God Hermione, what will I never do without you?" He responds, tearing up.

She coughs, and a small smile graces her features, "You'll live Ronald Weasely. You'll live." She kisses him on the cheek and continues to cough, "And you'll name one of your crazy Weasely Lovegood children after me."

He laughs, and he takes her hand in his own and plants a kiss on her bloodied knuckles.

"I promise." He says, "I promise."

He moves her gently, and leans her against a large oak tree in hopes of hiding her from the rest of the battle. And though Weasely will always be a bumbling idiot in my book, I'll give him this; he's a good man. I would have never done that for anyone not even Pansy, the girl I purposively love, I would've ran away out of fear for my own life, of staying in one place for too long. I would never have stayed as long as he has, I would be too much of a coward. But that's just one thing that defines how we're different.

Suddenly the sound of a blood curdling scream echoes into the air and Ron's attention turns towards the east. I watch him stand up and take one last glance at his best friend. He then starts running in the opposite direction towards the fighting and Death. She watches his retreating silhouette, and when he is finally out of sight, she begins to cry out of sheer pain.

I attempt to crawl deeper into the shadows, to die on my own, but end up rustling leaves around me, which immediately catches her attention.

"Whose there?" She says weakly, reaching for her wand fresh tears staining her tanned skin.

I decide, against my rational mind's wishes, that I'd rather not die alone tonight and so I crawl out into the moonlight, despite the numbness of my legs and the bleeding from my back and other body parts and make my way over to her.

"Malfoy." Is all she says to me, without shock or disgust.

"That's my name, don't wear it out." I reply with a smile.

"What in God's name are you doing out here?"

"Dying, thank you very much." I laugh, facing my greatest fear with the only weapon I have left, my boundless sense of humor, I lie down on my back placing my head on her lap. I take a deep breath of air, as the searing pain registers into my brain. I push it aside, because I'm a Malfoy, and big Malfoy's don't cry.

"Sorry about that." She responds, remembering her bombardment spell is what placed me in this predicament, and completely ignoring where I've chosen to place my head.

"A little late for apologizes don't you think?"

"I suppose so."

Then she begins to cough, she attempts to cover her mouth but her crimson blood ends up staining her lips and hands. She moves away from me, curls up into a ball and starts to shake, as I watch helplessly. Finally her breathing slows, if only slightly, and the flow of blood from her mouth stops.

"God, what did I do to deserve this." She whispers.

"Nothing." I tell her.

She looks at me, now the shock I was expecting when she first saw me arises onto her features. An awkward silence develops, as if we were sitting in Madame Puddifoot's on a first date and are fishing for a conversation piece.

"Tonight's a perfect shade of blue."

Now she is the one catching me off guard. I look towards the sky through the small opening we share with the trees. She's right, with not a single star in the sky, there is nothing surrounding us but dark blue. I always enjoyed the nighttime, but I've never noticed that it had a color.

"Are you afraid of dying?" I ask her.

"I never have been, not until now I suppose. I've never really thought about dying," She spits of wad of blood from her mouth, "I've always though of surviving. You?"

"I'm petrified. I'll never be able to look at myself in the mirror anymore!" I cry in disappointment.

She laughs, and I'm filled with a sort of happiness that I'm able to make her forget if only for a moment.

"You always were the vain one weren't you Malfoy."

"Yeah, but with great looks comes great responsibility."

She laughs again, but she is interrupted as her curse takes over her body again. She screams, it's deafening, and I watch as she begins to bleed not only through her mouth, from her nose and ears. I half expect to see her eye socket start to begin spurting blood, but the both of us we were spared. She's dying from the inside out. It's horrifying, I turn away not only to give her some dignity but to spare my own as well. Then, it stops again as suddenly as it started. That's what is truly terrifying about the Devourer's Curse; it takes its time, attacking little by little eating the victim from the capillaries all the way to the brain, lungs, and heart. I had learned how to cast it from my father, but even he was reluctant to teach me the incantation. She moans out of pain, her eyes are swollen from tears, and she is now lying on her side.

"Remember that time you fell into that Trick stair and dropped your books in third year?" I tell her, trying to distract her, "The look on your face was priceless, it was a mix between sheer embarrassment and utter horror. But you did fall as gracefully one could possibly hope too."

"You…you saw that?" She slowly says to me, staring at the grass.

"Yeah, I was walking to Professor Snape's room. I had an extra credit assignment to show him."

"I was such a klutz back then, well, I'm still a klutz." She manages to get out slowly, her words drowned by blood accumulating in her mouth.

Another silence. Again she is the one to break it.

"Draco." Her glare is now fixed on me, "I need you to do me a favor."

"Depends on the favor."

"Kill me." Is her simple demand.

I want to tell her no, that I could never do that to her. But is it murder if the victim is already dying? I watch her, her symptoms will only continue to intensify, her body will slowly collapse, she'll die of brain failure, or kidney failure, or heart failure or all three. I keep asking myself, **_Is it murder if the victim is already dying?_**

"You can use my wand," She interrupts my thoughts, "You can even try to mend your broken bones." Another coughing fit overcomes her, "Maybe figure out how to give your legs movement again."

She has discovered my paralysis; she always was the observant third of the Golden Trio. Well, the crawling about did give it away, and she was the one who sent my flying into a oak tree maybe she just put 2 and 2 together. I feel my body burn, and I feel pain course through me. But right now I can't concentrate on that. I've got a girl to watch over.

"You don't have to die tonight. You can get out of this."

I smile. She is such a Gryffindor, in her last moments she's worrying about _me_, the one person who she shouldn't be worrying about.

"I'll manage." I tell her, "You my dear are another story completely."

She no longer has the energy to speak, bruises are appearing on her exposed flesh, dark blue blotches, covering her skin. She is slowly becoming apart of the perfect night. She is now sobbing, she's in the last few moments of her life. I can tell. I grab her wand, which was lying next to her. I stare, I know I've killed a person before, but that person was anonymous to me, I didn't know their name, I didn't know their friends, I didn't know their past, I didn't know them. But I know Hermione Granger, and by simply knowing her name makes it that much harder for me to make this choice.

"Hermione…" I whisper to her, "You're not alone, I'm here with you. You won't be alone." I want her to know she won't die alone, that even if her Weasely isn't here, or Pot-Head, she has someone.

I'm growing soft, I'm aware, but watching the life drain out of someone who had so much of it can cause that immediate kind of change in you. There are so many things I wish I could change, about myself, about my life, about the world and anyone should be able to have the chance to change, even if it's in his last hours of life. I think of what I can do, but eventually it all trails back to the one question:

"Is it murder if the victim is already dying?" I ask no one in general. I point, aim, and weigh the choices.

And then I realize I don't have time for my philosophical questions, that I need to help Hermione whether it's right or wrong. Whether I won't be able to live with the choice or not. And in the end it doesn't matter, because I won't have to _live_ much longer anyway.

"**Avada Kedavra"**

This is my apology gift to you Hermione, for all of those times I ever called you Mudblood, for all of those times I made fun of you, stole your books, hurt your friends. May you rest in peace knowing that I am truly sorry. But hey, maybe I'll get to tell you face to face. If I'm lucky enough that is.

"**Avada Kedavra"**

_Thank you Draco._

_With Love,_

_Hermione_


End file.
